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Friday, 31 August 2012

Not a big fan of traditional religious cards in gold and white so I made a wedding congratulation card in red and beige. Initially it meant to be the ecru/cream colour but I couldn't find a nice backing paper so I went for beige stripes and was quite pleased with the effect. The card is for a befriended couple of newly weds. Simple, minimalist, the red colour implies love :) The card was well-received.

Monday, 27 August 2012

Hi all. Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was very crafty, busy, full of craft shopping and I really enjoyed it - I've got a lot projects running on at the moment and many are unfinished so they will have to wait for the future blog posts. However my craft creation stars of the week have been for me my two crafty jars :) A while ago I showed you the two little cross stitch designs and here is what I've done with them:

2 storage jars (I used the kilner brand) for some of my craft stash - ribbons, in this case. The cross stitch I made forms a nice padded pin cushion and needless to say is the central attraction of the jar lid :)

A close-up of the stitches :)

I loved both designs and I kind of regret the Cross Stitcher magazine didn't have a design for a pink/purple option either! I may alter one of these designs in the future and adjust the chart for the purplish colours, if I find some time to do it, naturally :)

Here, the jars have been filled up with colour-coordinated ribbons :)

Since I love combining craft techniques I couldn't resist glass painting the jars too! More "vitrail" pics of the jars below:

In my (still imaginary) craft room these two will find their place somewhere on a shelf among the other crafty boxes :) Such is the vision, at least ;P I shall be making more of this type of storage jars in the future :)

Now with the jars being finished, I moved on to glass painting some acetate fronts for my "vitrail" cards. These are both Scandinavian motifs and some occasional patterns. I haven't made this technique for cards for ages and I missed it. I thought it would be nice to have a set of festive cards like these for Christmas.

The photo shows them being outlined with a relief paste and drying up. Now the fun part lying ahead - filling the outlines up with colours, putting the pieces together and embellishing! Can't wait!

In the meantime I also knit. My 35th knitted ball :) currently finished and waiting to be stuffed.

If you ever wondered what glass painting looks like, here is a reality behind it :))) Well, stuff scattered all over the table - half painted drying glass, printed patterns, cutouts, paint pots, brushes... and only 15 cm of free space to paint! Dear me! Is it just me or do other crafters practise that too?

Glass painting isn't only about painting with paints, it involves a great deal of squeezing the tubes and dabbing with the relief paste too! In fact the beauty of the painted vitrail glass depends largely on a professional artistic relief application. The more precise, neat and artful, the better!

It's time to join up the blog linking party Hand-made Monday at Hand-made Harbour. Head over there to see some other fabulous crafty creations. I missed my last Hand-made Monday blog hop which is a shame cause I had had quite a lot to show. Thought I could link up on Tuesday morning but it turned out we had to be cut off the electricity for most of the day. So no laptop, no telly, no even a cup of tea! How dependent we are on electricity these days!!!

If you wanna have a peek what I had for show last week, here is the post ;)

Saturday, 25 August 2012

Inspired by the events in the UK - the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics I painted these two tealight candle holders with the motif of Union Jack. I used non standard colours for the flag, just for fun ;)

Thursday, 23 August 2012

...So I had this funny shaped square vase - very broad and flat at the front and very narrow on the sides. Perfect for putting a vibrant colourful motif. The owl was my choice. I'd never painted one so I was dying to see what it looked like on the glass. A flower-power, sorta hippie-style owl with a blossom look :)))

The glass paints look very fluorescent in the photos, in fact they are less so. However the colours are very vibrant and flashy. Don't you just love her blossom-shaped eyes? :)) Well, I do!

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Would it be a cliche if I said I love my holidays and I'm the lucky one to have proper school holidays. It's the only time when I can craft freely without worrying that I have to go to bed early enough or will run out of time to finish the project or simply be disturbed by anything. Precious enjoyable time! So... For the past week I'd been doing all sorts of crafting - knitting, cross stitching and cardmaking - in other words, whatever takes my fancy :) Here is what I have been up to...

Featuring for the first time on my blog is my Scandinavian-style cross stitched sampler with reindeer :) Yes, yes, I simply couldn't resist not stitching something Nordic this year. I feel this is beginning to set up as a tradition now - a Scandinavia inspired hand-made creation made each year! I'm so in love with this Scandi style that I'd probably feel guilty if I didn't make any! The inspiration for my sampler comes from one of my last year cross stitched cards from this post. You can guess easily which one from :) On this colour of aida the white "chalky" cross stitch against the dark inky blue background feels... very wintery and cold as if it was at deep dark midnight, don't you think so? :)

I must admit I love stitching sampler elements - hearts, snowflakes and above all those great folky reindeer :) They are such fun to stitch and you don't have to worry about changing the threads. This is a great thing about monochromatic samplers. It feels great to see how by adding an element each time you see your sampler building up.

This is as much as I have stitched so far - the middle part has been finished and currently I'm working on the upper decorative band. As the last thing I'll be stitching the bottom part. For the photo I took the sampler off the frame to show you what it looks like in its full size :)

For my cross stitched cards - well, I've finished stitching the three festive motifs and started the 4th one. Added some backstitch for the finish too. Then on Saturday a disaster struck - a standing nearby table unexpectedly folded in under the weight of stuff lying on it and the whole mug of hot (!!!) tea went down pouring all over me and some drops of tea also stained my stitches. Argh! I immediately ran with the stitches to soak them in Vanish and the stains, thank God, disappeared. This is what they look like after drying up - all the helpful grid marks disappeared. Never mind, I can put up with that as long as the stains are gone! It was a blessing in disguise, I'd say, 'cause the tea stained mostly the edges of the aida, which will be cut off anyway when I put the stitches in the aperture cards. This is a good lesson for the future. No drinks anywhere near my stitching!

Overall, happy ending! Phew!

Recently I've subscribed to a Cross Stitch Gold magazine. As a gift the publishing company sent me this lovely cross stitch kit with clifftop poppies. I thought I'd show it to you. Poppies are so trendy to stitch these days! However this kit will have to wait for a more convenient moment in the future as currently I'm busy with my Christmas stuff!

More on the cross stitch kit theme - my recent purchase from Stitch Direct- Yuletide Reindeer Stocking :) - the cross stitch kit I've been wanting for months and finally is mine! Simple, folky, Scandinavian and with reindeer - just as I like it! I'll be stitching it as soon as I've finished my white-on-blue sampler.

The sampler details are great - Scandinavian poinsettias, geometric floral designs, snowflakes, Christmas trees and forest animals :) This is what makes a Nordic look!

On the knitting front, I've knitted 10 more "skins" and they are waiting in my knitting bag to be steamed and stuffed :) I take such relaxing pleasure in knitting them that I delay finishing them off. I promise myself I'll sort them out by the end of this week :)

Well, I think I'll stop here. There is more stuff to show but I don't want to make this post too long to read through :P Keep dropping by!

Sunday, 19 August 2012

As a big fan of Arne and Carlos, I have recently purchased their recently released book - "Knitted Dolls with a Designer Wardrobe" :) Very pleased with this buy and another A&C book in my collection :) Initially I hesitated whether I really like those knitted dolls but the more I researched A&C on the internet, the more videos I watched on the YouTube, the more I wanted their new book. Eventually I'm going to give it a go and have a go at knitting a little more advanced form than a ball :)

The book has got a little different feel than their first book - "55 Christmas Balls to knit" - it is not focused on festivity, instead it is all about knitted dolls, dolls houses, knitting, playing with knitwear style, colour and designing a doll of your own choice. You can even knit your own look-a-like!

And both books side by side (both available on Amazon.co.uk) :) Next year, a 3rd one will be released! CAN'T WAIT!

A few photos of the inside for you, to grasp the doll climate of the book :) Looks like Arne and Carlos embarked on the mission to teach the nations how to knit :)

What a choice!

Contentwise, this is a bigger book with lots of clothes knitting pattern to choose as well as there are more instructions how to knits a doll's body. Once I'm done with knitting my balls and Easter eggs (!) I'll take up a challenge of knitting a doll. You can make them for yourself or as a gift or simply for your own children to play with :)